Faster Cycles.
Preview first.
Full undo.
Free Blender addon for Blender 4.2+.
Open the SceneQuant tab in the 3D Viewport N-panel.
Press Analyze & Preview.
Read the plan.
Then render.
Download scenequant-0.3.5.zip · itch.io · Gumroad
Do not install GitHub’s “Source code” zip. That is the repo, not the addon.
Author: Nick Siegel · GPL-3.0-or-later
Download
scenequant-0.3.5.zipfrom Releases.Blender → Edit → Preferences → Add-ons → Install from Disk.
Enable SceneQuant — Scene & Render Optimizer.
In the 3D Viewport, press N, then open the SceneQuant tab.
You need a Cycles scene with a camera.
EEVEE is not what this addon plans for.
This is the whole product for most people.
Leave Quality Contract on Preserve Look.
Leave Render Intent on Auto.
Click Analyze & Preview.
Read the plan. Confirm if you want it applied.
Hit F12, or render the animation as usual.
Hate it? Click Revert SceneQuant Changes.
Preserve Look does not change lights, shadows, materials, object visibility, bounce limits, or your denoiser.
It will not turn OIDN on.
It will not switch Accurate prefilter to Fast.
This panel is open when you install.
How much SceneQuant is allowed to change in exchange for speed.
Preserve Look (default)
Safe for finals and video.
Sampling and no-op GPU settings only.
Look stays.
Balanced
May lower samples after measuring.
Lighting, materials, visibility, and denoiser quality stay.
Aggressive
The old full stack.
Can change the look (culling, path settings, perceptual levers).
Review every action.
The published 41% / 52% / 62% plates were timed on Aggressive, not on Preserve Look.
Preserve Look will usually move less. That is the point.
Auto
If your output range is more than one frame, treat it as Video.
Video
Checks several frames before lowering samples.
The hardest frame wins.
A weak frame rejects the cut for the whole shot.
Still
Optimize the current frame only.
Video Check Frames
Shows when Intent is Auto or Video.
How many frames to sample.
Default is 3. Range is 2–7.
The big button.
Analyzes the scene.
Builds a speed plan for this file under the contract you picked.
Shows the plan before applying.
Applies what you accept.
Writes every change to a journal so it can undo.
A dialog reports the quality contract, render intent, how many video frames were checked, and how many appearance-risk levers were withheld.
On Preserve Look, this is on by default.
For each group of changes it renders a small before/after.
If the picture drifted past the quality contract, that group is rolled back immediately.
You will see a line like Visual guard: N accepted · M rolled back.
This is a conservative screen, not a substitute for checking an important shot at full resolution.
Puts the scene back to how it was before SceneQuant touched it.
Closed by default.
You do not need these for the 30-second path.
They are there when you want control.
Frame Samples
How many frames to sample for camera coverage.
Default 5.
Analyze Scene
Grades the scene and lists the top problems.
Export Report
Writes the last analysis out.
VRAM Budget (GB)
Your card’s total, or a ceiling you set.
0 means unset.
Do not subtract a reserve yourself. The planner already holds headroom.
Detect VRAM
Memory icon. Fills the budget from the GPU.
Fit to VRAM Budget
Only when you are over budget.
This is not what the 41 / 52 / 62% plates measure.
Preserve Look does not auto-run this.
Pre-flight VRAM Check
Before each render, warn if the last Analyze estimate will not fit.
Run Analyze first to arm it.
Auto / Manual
Auto previews the selected contract.
Manual lets you pick classes, then confirm.
Measure sample floor
Render a low-res ladder before lowering samples.
Video checks multiple frames.
Dead work / Path settings
Only in Manual.
Off-screen leftover work, or bounce / clamp / light-tree / caustics / volume paths.
Knee
Probe Sample Knee by itself.
Verify
Render a before/after check and report the delta.
Merge Duplicate Data
Datablock dedup.
Keep Reflections + Trim Off-screen & Distant
Hide work the camera cannot see.
With Keep Reflections on, trimmed objects still show in mirrors and glass.
Quality Factor / Min Texture Size / Quantize Textures
Downscale textures the camera does not need.
Hero / Keep images are skipped.
Draft Mode
Temporary draft render settings.
Toggle off when done.
Enable Camera Cull (opt-in)
Cycles camera cull flags.
Opt-in. Not the default click.
Mark Hero / Mark Exclude / Clear Override
Protect selected objects. See below.
Lossless / Perceptually Safe
Which Auto-Tune tiers to apply.
Auto-Tune Settings
Apply those tiers.
Not part of Preserve Look.
A count of recorded changes, grouped by tag, each with Revert.
Revert All Changes
Same as the main revert button.
Purge Backups (permanent)
Deletes backup copies.
Cannot undo.
Recover Journal
If the in-file journal is empty but a sidecar still exists beside the .blend.
On the selected object.
Auto
SceneQuant may optimize from camera coverage.
Hero
Never reduce this object’s textures or ray visibility.
Exclude
Never touch this object at all.
When an image is open.
Auto
May quantize from coverage.
Keep
Never downscale or replace this image.
Two files. One laptop.
Timed cold, factory-startup, persistent data off.
Machine
RTX 2080 Super Max-Q 8 GB · i7-10875H · 16 GB · Windows 11 · Cycles OptiX
| Scene | Blender | Res | spp | Before | After | Cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classroom (Christophe Seux) | 4.5.5 LTS | 1920×1080 | 300 | 2:43 | 1:35 | 41% |
| loft.blend | 4.5.5 LTS | 1080×1350 | 512 | 5:37 | 2:41 | 52% |
| loft.blend | 5.1.2 | 1080×1350 | 512 | 5:50 | 2:12 | 62% |
loft was timed at 100% (the native file is 250%).
These plates used the older Aggressive stack.
They are not a Preserve Look promise.
They are not a promise for every file.
A scene that is already tuned may only move a little.
Cycles only.
A camera is required for Analyze & Preview.
Preserve Look is a policy plus a visual guard, not pixel-identity on every GPU.
Check important shots at full resolution before a long sequence.
Fit to Budget is a separate VRAM tool.
Draft, Fast GI, and resolution tricks are not in the default click.
GPL-3.0-or-later.
See LICENSE.